The Brightest Star in the Sky
by PearlQ19
Summary: Just a short reflection about Sirius. Set a few days after ending of OoP. PLEASE RR


The Brightest Star in the Sky 

_A/N: This is a very short story. I got the idea because I remembered somewhere in the back of my mind that Sirius is the brightest fixed star in our galaxy __J__ The story is set a few days after the end of the fifth year at Hogwarts. If you want to know how it goes on, go ahead and read my other story, "Harry Potter and the Return of the Lost", for this one might as well be a sort of prologue to the other. And PLEASE send me a review!_

_Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine. They belong to J.K. Rowling, and I just borrowed them to express some thoughts I'm sure they had. The song at the end is mine, though. _

XXX 

Harry Potter was standing at his window, looking out into the starry night. It was well past midnight and the Dursleys were sound asleep. The house was quiet, apart from an occasional sound caused by Hedwig or some other animal outside. Not a car was on the road and all the other houses lining Privet Drive were dark. There was a peaceful solitude lying over Little Whinging, soothing Harry's sore heart.

He enjoyed this peaceful summer night as much as he could - which wasn't much. He still hadn't allowed himself to look further into this deep black hole that was now in the place that Sirius once had occupied. He was afraid of what he might find. He was still clinging to the thought that, if he simply did not fully accept what had happened, Sirius might return. And reliving the scene, thinking about Sirius's last moments and hearing Remus's words again was something Harry would not allow himself, for it would mean that he would have to accept it.

Harry turned his gaze upwards to the sky once again. His eyes hurt from lack of sleep, but he did not blink. His eyes would not water, anyway; they had remained dry and sore during the past few days, denying him the possible relief of crying. Harry was vaguely conscious of the fact that something must be wrong here; was it normal to suffer a loss that was almost unbearable and yet not shed a single tear? But thinking about that only made him feel worse.

Harry looked at the sky and spotted Mars. It was shining bright tonight, and when he looked very close, he thought he could see a slight touch of red in the planet's light. Yes, Mars was bright tonight... Harry remembered his first year at Hogwarts, when a Centaur had said these exact words. Had they, back then, already seen that war was coming? Mars, the bringer of destruction and brutality, named after the Roman God of War. Mars was bright tonight... was it an omen?

Harry made an effort to avert his eyes from Mars. Another star caught his eye, the very same star he had been looking at every night. Shining in a bright, white light, it had been there in the sky, every day, every night, with reassuring constancy: Sirius.

XXX 

Remus Lupin was tossing and turning in his bed. He couldn't sleep. Full moon was approaching, and Remus always had trouble sleeping in the few nights before and after, and when he finally managed to fall asleep, he'd have unnerving nightmares. And during the past few days Remus had not really dared to fall asleep at all, for he knew all too well that he would relive in his dreams the moment when he saw his last remaining true friend fall through a veil and vanish without a trace.

Remus sat up and staggered out of bed. His face was hot and sticky, and his pajamas were glued to his body. The night was warm, and it was even warmer here in London, where the hot air remained still with no cool breeze to refresh it. Remus hated big cities in the summer, when the exhaust fumes from the muggle cars mingled with the reek of trash, sweat and decaying food, but he could not afford to leave the Order just now. Although he desparately longed to. He needed some time on his own to cope with his grief. Although, or maybe because Molly and the others were treating him very kind and with deep sympathy, Remus sometimes wanted to scream, scream so loud that all the other sounds vanished. He sometimes wanted to pull his fingernails over his own skin until it bled, in order to suffocate the pain he felt in his heart, and for which there was no cure. It was almost the same pain as the one he felt when he became a werewolf - a tearing in his insides, his throat narrowing, the urgent wish to scream his throat sore, and then the sudden thought that even death couldn't be worse than that.

But death was no solution.

Remus stepped to his window, opened it and leaned outside, breathing deep. At night the air was better. He felt a breeze cool his flushed face, making the mixture of sweat and tears on his cheeks evaporate. Remus closed his eyes.

He had been thinking a lot of those days back in Hogwarts lately. Back then, when he had had three friends who would have died for him. True friends of the kind that were rarely to be found. He had felt blessed, he had felt happy, he had felt invincible with these friends at his side.

And now...

Two dead, one a traitor. And he himself... Aged before his time, with graying hair and shabby clothes, the werewolf in him wearing out his strength. For two short years he had been happy, because he had found Sirius again, whom he had thought to have lost for ever.

But now it seemed that something did not want him to be happy.

Remus opened his eyes again. A tear trickled down his cheek and dropped on the window-sill, then another one and another one. Remus cried silently, lest anyone notice.

"Why did you have to leave me?" he asked Sirius silently. "Why did you have to do this to me? Why to me; I wasn't the one who betrayed you!"

But he knew that anger wasn't a solution, either.

Remus rested his elbows on the window-sill and buried his face in his hands, bent with weeping.

XXX 

Harry had the strong feeling that he was not alone. He got this feeling every time he looked up at Sirius, drawing strength from the star's pure light. For once, he did not regret that Astronomy was an obligatory subject at Hogwarts. When Professor Sinistra had told them some time ago that Sirius was the brightest fixed star in the galaxy, Harry had wondered if Mrs Black had known that. He did not suppose so, though, for if she had, she surely would have regretted very strongly that she had given this name to the "wrong" son, the one who had, in her eyes, betrayed the traditions of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. Her other son, Regulus, had also been named after a star, but Regulus's light seemed dim and distant compared to that of Sirius.

Which applied to both, the star and the man.

Harry let out a deep, desparate sigh. The night was so beautiful, so enchanted, but he could not savor it. The pain was still a hard lump in his throat that threatened to suffocate him, and he would not start to feel better until this lump had dissolved into the tears he had not yet been able to cry.

Harry thought of Remus and his heart cringed with a mixture of sympathy and reluctance. He knew all too well that Remus was probably the only person in the world who could really understand him, understand what he was going through. But Harry did not yet feel ready to talk to someone else again. This numbness, he knew, would fade sooner or later, but until then he would remain in his room and not talk to anyone. Remus would probably be worried about him, Harry knew that, but there was nothing he could do about it. If the others thought that he could just go and "talk about it", they were wrong. As much as he liked Remus, he would not be able to look him in the eye and say that he was sorry for him. Remus would understand; Harry was sure he would.

The day would come when he and Remus would find consolation in each other. But up until then, Harry wanted to be left alone. And after all, he was not quite alone. He knew that he was not the only one who was looking at the sky tonight. He felt the werewolf's presence as if he were standing next to him, knowing that they were looking at the same star, separated but united in their silent hope that Sirius, star and man, would look down on them in return.

XXX 

Remus's tears finally subsided. He looked up once more, his eyes automatically scanning the sky for Sirius. There it was, shining proudly and with all its beauty. Remus fixed his eyes on the star, and he suddenly felt, if not exactly consoled, soothed.

Sirius Black had been special. Born into a pureblood family with a strong inclination to the Dark Arts, he alone had denied his heritage and joined the Order of the Phoenix. It was only just that now that he was gone, the brightest star in the galaxy still spelled out his name.

As Remus kept looking up to Sirius, he remembered his old friend's face, memorized every little detail, silently taking a vow that he would never forget it. And he knew he wouldn't.

For he saw his face in the brightest star in the sky.

XXX 

_I turn my eyes to the sky_

_Standing and watching as time goes by_

_Mourning your loss_

_Who will heal my scars?_

_But I see your face in each of the stars_

_How I dread the morning_

_When the stars all shall fade_

_You left without warning_

_Back into the shade_

_I am lonely again_

_Live in fear of the moon_

_What does the world hold without you?_

_Will I be with you soon?_

_I turn my eyes to the sky_

_Bending and weeping as time goes by_

_Feeling abandoned_

_Now that you're so far_

_I remember your face_

_You're the brightest of stars_

_End Note: __PLEASE send me a review on that. I know it's short, but I just had to write it. As I said, this can be seen as a sort of prologue to "Return of the Lost", so if you haven't read that one yet, go and get it in the instant that you finished reading this - and don't forget the review there, either __J__ Note, though, that it doesn't exactly continue this story, for I wrote "Return of the Lost" almost a year ago._


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